Went on a short foray this afternoon in the western Cascade foothills and found three humongous Hydnum repandum. I've never seen them that large! One of them must weigh close to a pound! 8O Got a bunch of small ones too. Can't wait to cook them up! Sorry no pic to share.

Hedgehog fungus are quite meaty and quite substantial- I had a few earlier this year- enjoy them!

Mark

OK....this is really getting to me....everyone is finding them in quantity this year, and I haven't been able to find one yet...grrrr
But, guess I can't complain as its been a good year.....I'll look again this weekend

shroom gal

We are pondering going into that vast forest around Harrison Lake. Do you have any idea of the elevation where you were picking on the fifteenth.? that freezing line is getting lower all the time.

I have picked big Hydnums before but I don't think that they were that big. I always found that the large mature ones tasted fairly bitter and needed a lot of cooking. We are hoping to find some Angel Wings and who knows.

Well, I think, based on what I've read, that everything is in quantities this year, at least in Oregon. Can't speak for the other states. The large ones were scattered over a small area. They were not all clumped in one place.

Am going to try the recipe with panini (substituting turkey) in "All That the Rain Promises....and More" on the hedgehog page.

Elevation could not have been above 1,000. It is supposed to be fairly chilly tomorrow (Saturday) so I'm sure that frost line will plummet. However! One Christmas I found some tiny hedgies and yellowfeet a couple miles after the turnoff for 242 off 126 and there was snow on the ground. :o So hopefully they'll survive. Happy foraging!

Well we took that trip to Harrison Lake today. The first twenty minutes in the bush were pretty discouraging, blue fingers, shivering, that sort of thing. But just as I was aboout to bend down to examine this patch of small shrooms my partner gave that familiar call "Hey, whats this!" So I hustled over there to see her bending over a larger patch of whatever it was that I was about to examine. She picked the biggest of the lot and we checked it out. Hollow trumpet shape, tannish orange color on top, then we turned it over and saw the veins where gills ought to be and we knew that it was some sort of Cantharellus. I have seen them in my books so I said "Pick them, we'll put a name to them when we get home" So we did, lots of them. It is amazing how picking shrooms warms up your hands.

The environment was deep moss in very open coniferous forest. They were very easy to spot because there were very few leaves on the moss. Some of the stems were almost five inches long and bright yellow (are these called "yellow feet? they were, of course, C.tubaeformis"). The biggest ones were only abot an inch across the cap, the gills were very pronounced and forked, slightly decurrent, and the under color was a light lavender sort of color. The stems are hollow from the cap down.

While filling my bag with these, I also found seven of the biggest and brightest orange C. cibarius that I found all season. And then, While heading down this little valley going back to the road I found a log just crammed with Oyster mushrooms, which I gently stuffed about half of into an already full bag. Then staggered back to the road passing many more.

Now shroomers we were out there without our usual gear, shears, extra bags etc. because we KNEW that the season was over and that we were only out there for the drive and the fresh air. I am guessing that for the last fourteen years we have been packing it in too early. So shroomgal thanks to you and your Repandum for the inspiration for our most successful non-pine foray of the year. And thank you fungusfun for letting me find that inspiration here. Whistle